'Frida' opens operatic window into life of artist Kahlo

Soprano Catalina Cuervo says that artist Frida Kahlo has long been an icon in her native Colombia. She stars in Cincinnati Opera's "Frida" through July 8 at the Aronoff Center.(Photo: Provided/Philip Groshong)

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is known for her self-portraits that offer a window into her life.

Colorful and bold folk art, her surreal portraits display the passion and emotion of a life that endured endless pain and died too young.

“Her paintings were small, her brushes were tiny. But what she did very well was being able to portray emotion onto a canvas,” said soprano Catalina Cuervo. “You see a picture of her, and you know what she was going through at that moment.”

Cuervo sings the title role of “Frida,” a 1991 opera by Robert Xavier Rodriguez presented by Cincinnati Opera, June 23 to July 8 at the Aronoff Center.

Kahlo, who died in 1954 at age 47, endured polio as a child and nearly died in a bus accident that caused a railing to impale her body. In her tortured painting, “The Broken Column” of 1944, the artist’s nearly nude body is shown cracked down her torso and held together with wide straps, painted during the period when a bone graft and steel were fused to her spine.

She was both a mystery and a free spirit. Kahlo had a tumultuous marriage to the muralist Diego Rivera, whom she married twice, while they both had affairs with a litany of others. Beautiful, with a distinctive "unibrow," she wore the color-soaked dresses of Mexico’s Tehuana women, and also joined the Mexican Communist Party.

“Frida’s creation of her own persona was part of her art,” explained Rodriguez in Cincinnati earlier this week. “She dressed in elaborate costumes that screamed Mexico – the Tehuana dresses and the roses in her hair and two rings on every finger. But she’s been a feminist hero for standing up to the giant figure of Diego Rivera. … She created her own identity that, ironically today, is greater than Diego’s."

Cincinnati is the 16th city to mount Rodriguez’s opera, he said.

Public infatuation with Kahlo has peaked in recent years, partly thanks to the 2002 film, “Frida,” directed by Julie Taymor and starring Salma Hayek.

Cuervo, who performed Maria in Piazzolla’s “Maria de Buenos Aires” in Cincinnati five years ago, sang the title role of “Frida” in a new production for Michigan Opera Theatre in 2015. She spoke about the role last week between rehearsals.

Question: What was your path to the opera stage?

Answer: I was born in Medellin, Colombia. My great-aunt was the most famous soprano coloratura my country has had, Alba del Castillo. I grew up hearing her music. That had a big impact on me.

In high school, I was a rocker. I played electric guitar and had two bands. I went to the New World School of the Arts, University of Florida, and have a master's and artist diploma from Roosevelt University (Chicago). In my college years, to support myself and be a full-time student, I did belly dancing, because my family on my mom’s side is Lebanese.

Q: What is it like for you to create Frida Kahlo’s character?

A: The difference between (playing) Frida and a general character such as Mimi or Musetta or Violetta, is you are playing a real person and somebody who is the idol for so many people. It’s more about hard study of her character, her emotions, the way she talked, moved, her facial expressions – everything about her.

Even our makeup is not stage makeup. Everything will be as real as possible. So even the hand gestures, the way I stand, it’s all calculated. People will feel like they have Frida right beside them.

Q: Was the music difficult to learn?

A: It was definitely difficult and challenging. The composer writes, “In a musical metaphor for Frida’s unique persona, her vocal line is scored with its own characteristic rhythms, often in three-quarter time while the orchestra or the rest of the cast is in duple meter.” It’s so hard! Vocally, the range of Frida goes from extremely low, contralto-land to soprano-land.

A: That has to be the bath scene in Act II. (Director) Jose Maria Condemi and (set and costume designer) Monika Essen created this beautiful scene where you see Frida with her lovers in the bath. The music is magical – almost jazzy, very sensual and beautiful What they created with the staging, the lights, scenery and lovers is very sensual, but not too much.

Q: The opera is rated “R” and has some nudity. Was that difficult for you?

A: Jose Maria (the director) called me a couple of months before our production with Michigan Opera Theatre and said he wanted to recreate the famous painting with the wide leather straps (“The Broken Column”). So he said, “Would you mind being topless?” I don’t mind because I think it’s completely justified. And it’s so beautiful. I’m very proud of that scene.

Q: What is the meaning of the “Calaveras” (skulls) that appear in the opera?

A: She was infatuated, like much of Mexican culture is, with death. It’s not a bad thing. They believe in the afterlife, so they celebrate death. Frida wasn’t afraid to die. She actually joked a lot about La Pelona (Death). She was always joking that “La Pelona’s not going to take me yet. She almost got me!”

The Calaveras were her hallucinations. In her accident, when she almost died, she started seeing the Calaveras dancing around her. At the end of her life, she was in extreme pain. She had to rely on high doses of painkillers, alcohol, and marijuana to alleviate the pain. So she was hallucinating and would see the Calaveras. (The opera) has a beautiful moment when she dies, when she finally can dance with them.